INTRODUCTION TO HENRY VI, PARTS II AND III

Summary

Theatrical Origins

In the Introduction to 1 Henry VII attempted to prove, what has long been suspected, that that play was first performed several months or more after the production of its historical sequel. It follows that the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI, as they are called in the Folio of 1623, which furnished the earliest authentic texts of all three plays, must originally have passed under other names. What these names were may be gathered from the title-pages of two editions, published in 1594 and 1595, almost a generation before Jaggard printed the folio versions. They are ‘bad’ texts, that is to say they represent what Professor Alexander has shown to be memorial reconstructions of the genuine plays, almost certainly set down by members of a company which had performed the latter. But since such ‘pirates’ would be anxious to pass their fakes off as the real article we can feel confident that they made use of the names already familiar to the theatre-going public. Here then are the titlepages, which I fancy may have been taken directly from the playbills exhibited in the streets of London:

The ∣ Firft part of the Con- ∣ tention betwixt the two famous Houfes of Yorke ∣ and Lancafter, with the death of the good ∣ Duke Humphrey: ∣ And the banifiiment and death of the Duke of ∣ Suffolh, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinall ∣ of Winchejier, with the notable Rebellion ∣ of Iacke Cade: ∣ And the Duke of yorkes firft claime vnto the ∣ Crowne. ∣ [device] ∣ LONDON ∣ Printed by Thomas Creed for Thomas Millington, ∣ and are to be fold at his fhop vnder Saint Peters ∣ Church in Cornwall. ∣ 1594.